They call it the graveyard shift or gravy for short. All-nighter at the studio. It’s the cheapest time on the clock. Midnight to 8 in the morning. Just me, the engineer and the click track hour after hour. It can make you crazy. The drum machine … [Continue reading]

Its not the first time its happened. They’ve been here before. I just didn’t expect them to arrive with such a raging hunger this time. Good job we made some earlier.
I forgot to bring my magic carpet. Every drummer has one. Set-up your drums on … [Continue reading]

It was a humid, cloudy evening at around nine o’clock, and we were starving. Hana and I, waiting where Laurie’s street met a main West End vein, stood looking at the low, dark ceiling stretching above Glasgow.
‘There he is.’ I pointed at a tall … [Continue reading]

What to cook for eight people – a big dish on a strict budget. I stood in a decent local supermarket, looking down at the items rattling around my basket. Three red peppers, a big bag of carrots. Raising my head, my eyes locked onto a row of tinned … [Continue reading]

The day had left a bitter, anxious taste in my mouth, mingling with the whisky. Despite being let go, I felt sorrier for John than myself. After a few drinks in the cluttered back room I had left him there, still drinking, and begun cycling home. It … [Continue reading]

On this early evening Buena Vista Social Club were playing loudly from the living room. And I was glad that our music could spill onto the street below, adding to the cocktail of the late summer air. The windows were open, but hesitantly, as this was … [Continue reading]

It was on a windy day. When I say windy, I mean it was blowing a hurricane. Leaves blown like confetti mix with flying trash in a display of dancing candy wrappers, bus tickets and beer cans all tumbling and scatter and sent flying again with every … [Continue reading]

Here we are in the early days of Spring and my thoughts wander to daydreams of the impending flesh-frying heat of summer in Barcelona, where I live. A city by the sea, the summer air sweats like a sauna and fuses to the arcing white-hot radiance from … [Continue reading]

He was turning red and salty sweat drops started raining down on the table top. Courageously he continued shovelling the red liquid into his mouth. He tried to look normal and wiped the sweat off his face but he couldn’t hide what he was … [Continue reading]